Elsarticle LaTeX document class

elsarticle.cls is Elsevier's document class for journal articles. It is the preferred format for submitted articles, both in Elsevier's electronic submission system and elsewhere. This page contains information about elsarticle.cls, its documentation and supporting templates, packages and bibliographic style files.

Bugs and problems with elsarticle.cls may be reported to the developers of the class via elsarticle@river-valley.com. For all other enquiries please contact Elsevier author support at support@elsevier.com.

elsarticle.cls is based upon the standard LaTeX document class article.cls. It makes use of existing standard packages, such as natbib.sty for bibliographical references. The AMS packages amssymb and amsthm, which provide additional mathematical symbols and theorem environments, are compatible with elsarticle.

Documentation for elsarticle is available in the file elsdoc.pdf.

The archive file elsarticle.zip contains the latest versions of elsarticle.cls and all the other files described on this page. The elsarticle files are also released periodically through  CTAN and as part of the major TeX distributions. Click here for some guidelines on using CTAN, and for a complete list of the packages required to run elsarticle properly. All the required packages are included as standard with LaTeX distributions.

To install elsarticle, unzip the elsarticle.zip file. Usually the file can be unzipped directly in the local tree of your TeX distribution (for TeX Live, this would be in the texmf-local directory). The archive contains the following files:

• elsarticle.cls, the class file (last updated 17 December 2009)
• elsdoc.pdf, the user documentation
• elsarticle-template-num.tex, general manuscript template for numerical references
• elsarticle-template-harv.tex, general manuscript template for name-year references
• Several bibliographic style files for use with BibTeX (see below)
• Manuscript templates for use with these bibliographic styles (see below)

Note: Elsevier journals still accept submissions using the previous journal document class, elsart, but this is no longer supported or maintained. We encourage all authors and editors to use elsarticle in preference.

elsarticle.cls provides a number of options to format the manuscript in different ways according to what is required. The main options are listed below:

• preprint - default option yielding a standard manuscript format
• review - as preprint but with extra interline space for use in the review process
• 1p - formats according to the look and feel of a single-column journal style (text area 19.8 x 13.5 cm). See the note below about journal layout options.
• 3p - formats according to the look and feel of one- or two-column journal style (text area 21.9 x 16.5 cm). To use the two-column variant declare an additional twocolumn option. See the note below about journal layout options.
• 5p - formats according to the look and feel of a two-column journal style (text area 24.1 x 18.4 cm). See the note below about journal layout options.
• authoryear - name-year citation
• number - numbered citation

In addition to this, all the options available with the standard article.cls document class are also available with elsarticle.

For the full list of package options please consult the user documentation.

We advise authors not to spend any time formatting their manuscripts to match the printed journal style. Most Elsevier journals use layouts based on the Gulliver font family, which is not licensed for use with LaTeX. Hence elsarticle cannot reproduce the printed layout of most journals. For the submission and review process authors should follow the journal guidelines for the formatting of manuscripts (single/double spacing etc) using the preprint and review class options described above. To produce a more journal-like layout the 1p, 3p and 5p options can be used, but note that in most cases this will not produce a layout with either the same page extent or the same appearance as the final published article.

For articles with a lot of mathematics that are being submitted to a journal that uses a two-column layout, it is advisable to select a two-column option. This is because we prefer, where possible, to follow our authors' recommendations for the line-breaking of long equations.

For camera-ready-copy (CRC) journals there is an additional package, ecrc.sty, that provides a few additional CRC features for use with elsarticle. See the CRC page for more information.

Most Elsevier journals use a set of standard reference styles. For each reference style, we provide a BibTeX bibliographic style file for use with elsarticle.cls.

The list below shows the available bibliographic styles, together with elsarticle manuscript templates that use these styles. Starred items require download of an additional package, numcompress.sty. All files referred to below are also included in the archive package, elsarticle.zip.

Please follow this link to determine which of the listed reference styles is appropriate for your journal. If your journal does not have a reference style listed, you should use one of the general styles (author/year or numbered) shown at the bottom of the page.

Starred items in the above list require an additional file, numcompress.sty. More information about these styles and templates is available at the River Valley Technologies wiki pages.

There are also some general bibliographic style files available:

• elsarticle-num.bst, general BibTeX style file for numerical references (manuscript template)
• elsarticle-harv.bst, general BibTeX style file for name-year references (manuscript template)
• elsarticle-num-names.bst, BibTeX style file for numerical references also allowing name-year citations